the clearing to the other, and all along, the male was at my side.
Sure, my chest was heaving like I’d walked a thousand miles, but I’d fucking done it.
I’d walked!
Yeah, it didn’t escape me that I’d managed to achieve what a toddler could do, but still, I felt triumphant.
Mostly, I felt free from pain, and it was enough to make me feel delirious.
I wanted to thank Kali Sara from the bottoms of my paws to the tips of the ears that now sat on the top of my head rather than at the side of it.
The relief and joy I felt at being free from the ever-present discomfort my condition had granted me was like a bright light being shone through the darkest of tunnels.
On some days, yesterday included, the pain was so strong that I could feel the echoes of it down my nerve endings. The shadow wasn’t excruciating, more of a memory. One that made me realize that, for certain, I should be angry about being forced into this transformation, and yes, there was someone out there who’d meant me harm—which was nothing new, not with my having been on the run for twelve years—but for this freedom?
I’d take it.
Gladly.
And for the smile in that man’s eyes?
Well, that was too difficult a question to answer. I just knew that not even Kian had made me feel this way, and while that was a betrayal in and of itself, he was gone now, dead, and I was alive and barely living.
If this man, this stranger, could make me feel something other than misery? Well, I wasn’t about to turn my back on it or him, or this strange new world I found myself in.
Ethan
I’d been on edge all night. Uncomfortable ever since I’d crossed the threshold into my home and had stayed up watching the council.
They’d long since left, and the roosters on the surrounding farms and ranches had long since cried their joy at another day dawning, but I hadn’t bothered to leave the cabin, nor had I bothered making my brother take over my post.
The urge to sleep wasn’t a strong one, and my ears told me he was still awake too. Which meant we were both feeling the same way—unnerved.
Altogether, that shouldn’t have surprised me. We were similar in that, even though, in many ways, we were completely different entities. That usually surprised people. Especially our people. It was like, because we had the indecency to share a womb, we were clones. Carbon copies of one another. But we weren’t.
I loved reading and learning, and Austin wasn’t happy if he couldn’t get his ass in front of the TV to watch some stupid game at least once per day.
He never read, and I never watched TV.
Of course, that wasn’t the only marker as to our differences, but one way in which we were similar—our wolves. The power we had. The ability to discern nuances about a situation that kept us out of the crapper.
Our instincts.
And ever since we’d found that woman, bleeding out, dying, shifting, changing…she’d been calling to me like a goddamn siren’s song.
I wasn’t used to that, even though I usually found ways to scratch an itch among humans. She-wolves never let us near them because of who we were—not Eli’s left hand, but twins—so it wasn’t too unusual I’d find a human attractive. But this seemed different than attraction.
My cock wasn’t totally in charge. It wasn’t that usual itch I got every now and then. It was…strange.
Deep.
Resonating through every beat of my heart and sending the weird feeling around my body.
I tugged at my bottom lip as I stared at the packhouse, a place I knew Eli hadn’t returned to. A place I knew the female wasn’t in.
The urge to find her was imperative. She was in safe hands. There were none safer. Eli was a damn good alpha but, more than that, he was a fine man. He’d look after her. Help her.
Trouble was, I wanted to do that too.
And if I did?
I knew Austin was right there with me.
One way in which we weren’t different?
The women we liked to screw.
“Stop it.”
I jerked in surprise at his hard bark and grunted over just how damn out of it I was. Failing to hear him stomp his way through the cabin? My brain was whirring with particulars it had no right to be focusing on when I was on duty.
“Stop what?” I grumbled. “Just sitting here.”
“I can hear you thinking.”
I winced. “Fuck. Sorry.”
His